Hindsight is 20/20: What Republican Campaign Tactics Teach Us About the State of American Democracy.
In 1970, a nineteen-year-old Karl Rove played a little prank on the campaign of Alan Dixon, who was running for State Treasurer of Illinois. Rove used a fake name, walked into Dixon’s campaign office, and stole 1,000 sheets of paper with the Dixon letterhead. The young Rove then used the stationary to print a flier promising “free beer, free food, girls, and a good time for nothing” and dispersed the flier to homeless shelters and rock concerts. To some, this may seem like a harmless juvenile prank, but to others, this is the very first example of the Rovian political strategy.
During the past fifteen years, Americans have become very familiar with the Rove strategy, and his model for victory, in one form or another, has been executed by countless campaigns across the country. The Rove strategy relies on targeted fear and deception, and it is anchored by deep pockets and a network of loosely-formed political action committees.
Often, journalists and political analysts overstate Rove’s singular influence; what Rove has provided is simply a formula, a blueprint, and a method. Rove led, and others followed by example.
The formula is quite elementary: Target voters who can be manipulated, and paint your opponent, through both official and unofficial channels, as morally and ethically bankrupt.
In Texas, Rove helped George W. Bush win the governor’s race by alleging that the late Ann Richards was a lesbian (which she was not). He helped win the South Carolina primary for George W. Bush by spreading the rumor that McCain had a “black baby.” And during the last Presidential election, he found a group of Vietnam veterans who were willing to speak out against Kerry, formed a political action committee, funded the whole enterprise through a Houston real estate developer, and taped a series of powerful commercials, claiming that Kerry hadn’t actually served with distinction. None of these veterans actually served with Kerry, but they still said they had. (In truth, they were simply acting out on an old grudge against Kerry).
Rove famously courted the evangelical vote, and many of his most defamatory and misleading campaign attacks were carried out from the pulpit. (It’s important to note that all the while, behind closed doors, Rove and others insulted and disparaged the very evangelicals they were courting).
What we witnessed on Tuesday was not simply the end of the Republican majority in Congress; we also witnessed the end of Rovian political strategy. Quite simply, Americans are tired of negative campaigning, particularly when the negativity is so transparent in its objectives. During the last election, Republicans pulled out every play in the Rove play book: race-baiting, fear-mongering, and outright divisiveness. It is one thing to campaign on the issues, and it is quite another to scare people into voting (or not voting) based on deception. Republicans may fairly take issue with the Democratic tax plan, and Democrats may also fairly question Republicans on the Iraq War. But when campaigns only appeal to our lowest common denominator, when they preach fear and not hope, when they claim an exclusive hold on morality and God, and when they use our airwaves to spread vitriol, we must stand up, regardless of our party affiliation.
Last Tuesday, Americans did just that. We should all be thankful that there is now a check against the unfettered spending, the misguided war policies, and the culture of corruption that exists any time one party is allowed to rule unopposed.
We should also recognize that the Republicans had actually done a fantastic job of fooling Americans into thinking that our country was more conservative than it actually is and that the only way to move forward is by addressing the needs and concerns of the Great American Middle. During the last election, Democrats received between 25%- 33% of the evangelical vote, a clear sign of the shifting winds.
Next: What the Roy/Brewer Run-off Teaches Us About Alexandria.
CenLamar 
Race-baiting, fear mongering and divisiveness were mastered by the demoncrats, especially the likes of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and their ilk.
Really? Can you provide us some real examples, say, on par with the ones Lamar linked, or with this flyer?
I mean real examples– ones that don’t involve using throwaway labels like “demoncrats” or trotting out the trope that the black activists are the real racists. Those of us interested in the truth would greatly appreciate it.
Mastered by them?
Pardon me for pointing out the obvious, but Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are and have always been civil rights activists. They are not the leaders of the Democratic party, and however influential they are in certain communities, they have never received the Democratic nomination for higher office.
Thanks for the unbiased reporting, I’m having flashbacks of reading the town talk.
No worries.
For the record, I am registered as an Independent, and I’ve been searching all day for an inflammatory and baseless Democrat attack ad from the last election to reference. But alas, I can’t find one. Like Nath said, if someone has a good example, send it over.
very objective Lamar. Just like the rest of today’s media. Being independent makes you a fence straddler. nothing more nothing less.
Well it didn’t take too long to find some info for you – Stanford actually conducted research on this year’s elections ads –
http://pcl-wp.stanford.edu/s7/
They show both republican and democractic candidates from several states with both positive and negative messages. They have measured responses from democratic, republican and independent voters as to their reponse to the ads. This was all an attempt to determine if negative advertising actually works. According to the article I read before going to the study site what they found is this – negative advertising won’t sway a vote from one side to the other, but it will keep a voter home. Go figure – maybe that’s what happened to all Delores’ votes Fletcher was counting on.
Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton make their living by keeping the pot unrest stirred. And if I recall Jesse once ran for president. Imagine that slimy bastard as president.
First of all, that ad was not racist at all. What the hell are you thinking?
Fear mongering? What about the democrats forever saying if the republicans get elected the elderly will lose their social security!?
Divisiveness? That article wasn’t divisive since that is precisely what will probably happen now that the appeasers are in control. Talk to me again after 2 years of dems control.
By the way, who wrote the piece Lamar? You get all your talking points from the Clinton News Network, I suppose.
First of all, I wrote the piece.
Second, yes, the Harold Ford Jr ad featured elements of race-baiting. That is precisely why it was pulled by the RNC. Eurweb states this: “Critics say the ad plays into white fears of interracial relationships and echoes old GOP tactics of using racial appeals to win support from white voters.”
The fear-mongering pieces were plentiful. Go read the ad that I referenced. It suggests that a vote for the Dems will somehow embolden child predators. (Double Jeopardy: Who is Mark Foley?)
Third, to suggest that a vote for a Democrat was a vote for the terrorists is divisive, as it implies that Democrats do not respect or care for our national security. Actually, it’s more than divisive. It’s deplorable and stupid.
I think you’ve missed the point.
This isn’t about being a Republican or a Democrat. It’s about the campaign tactics popularized by Karl Rove and how this election wasn’t just a referendum against Bush, it was also a clear sign that Rovian strategies are no longer as effective. The average voter sees through them.
Since at least two of you seem to be Republican apologists, I suggest you consider this as serious advice, not blindly demean me as some liberal.
To the person who supplied the Stanford link: I was looking for baseless and defamatory ads. I still haven’t found one. The Democratic ads were, for the most part, critical of the war and of President Bush.
But I think you’re right: Most negative ads keep people AWAY from the polls. And why would you ever want to discourage people from voting… unless it was to your political advantage?
First of all, I wrote the piece.
Second, yes, the Harold Ford Jr ad featured elements of race-baiting. That is precisely why it was pulled by the RNC. Eurweb states this: “Critics say the ad plays into white fears of interracial relationships and echoes old GOP tactics of using racial appeals to win support from white voters.”
The fear-mongering pieces were plentiful. Go read the ad that I referenced. It suggests that a vote for the Dems will somehow embolden child predators. (Double Jeopardy: Who is Mark Foley?)
Third, to suggest that a vote for a Democrat was a vote for the terrorists is divisive, as it implies that Democrats do not respect or care for our national security. Actually, it’s more than divisive. It’s deplorable and stupid.
I think you’ve missed the point.
This isn’t about being a Republican or a Democrat. It’s about the campaign tactics popularized by Karl Rove and how this election wasn’t just a referendum against Bush, it was also a clear sign that Rovian strategies are no longer as effective. The average voter sees through them.
Since at least two of you seem to be Republican apologists, I suggest you consider this as serious advice, not blindly demean me as some liberal.
To the person who supplied the Stanford link: I was looking for baseless and defamatory ads. I still haven’t found one. The Democratic ads were, for the most part, critical of the war and of President Bush.
But I think you’re right: Most negative ads keep people AWAY from the polls. And why would you ever want to discourage people from voting… unless it was to your political advantage?
Maybe you guys are not old enough to remember the tawana brawley “brawl”. Al Sharpton race baiting at its best. What about the terror tactics against the clarence thomas and robert bork supreme nominations. Yes, the famous willie horton affair soon followed. there are plenty of examples on both sides of the aisle of hypocrisy and and sleaze. Democrats pretty much ran congress for 40 years( until reagan broke through in senate in mid-80’s for two years i think) giving us stuff like the house post office scandal, savings and loan mess et. al. As an independent, the level of acrimony and character smears keep good people out of politics, so i largely agree with lamar except with the implication that this all started with rove. a quick check of 19th century h.l. mencken style political reporting shows this stuff as part of the countries primal political psyche. I mean how many of you know what alexander hamilton said to aaron burrr that got him killed in a duel? I truly hope we are in for an era of civility….i sincerely doubt it.
Both Republicans AND Democrats are guilty of using negative ads in campaigns, particularly in federal elections. Karl Rove is worthy of discussion because he is considered to be one of the most successful political strategists in the country. So much so, that his abilities landed him a job at the White House. This speaks volumes about our President AND about us. After all, we allowed Mr. Rove’s messages to work on us. We, the American voters elected George W. Bush twice!
The tactics of Sharpton and Jackson should be a part of this discussion as well. I agree with those who called their tactics race-baiting and fear mongering. They are no better than Mr. Rove–maybe even worse. But again, these operatives cannot be successful without the American people. If we stop responding by voting against candidates who use their strategies, they’ll stop dishing it out.
I am looking forward to the discussion about the Alexandria mayor’s race. I do believe that the nasty, negative campaign ads are a turn off in local elections here. After all, our city is small enough that we have to run into each other at the grocery store and many other places. I think it makes us too uncomfortable to watch such nasty ads as we did and then see each other at our work places, churches and in public.
I appreciate the last two comments (8:55 and 9:40 am). I agree with the thrust of both of their arguments. I feel that taken together, they basically flesh out a rational and moderate position with a conciliatory tone. It\’s a shame that politicians are rarely able to do the same.
In response to a fellow Federalist\’s comment at a dinner party about Burr\’s inability to effectively govern, Hamilton reportedly suggested that he could offer an \”even more despicable opinion\” of Mr. Burr. I\’m uncertain if it was ever determined what opinion he was referring to, and Hamilton insisted that he could not recall the incident (indeed our forefathers taught our politicians well).
It\’s true that Lamar, myself, and many others that are learning to walk on new political legs do not remember the Democratic Congressional majority–or their shortcomings–in any substantial way. As a caveat, our current excitement and naive enthusiasm can be attributed in large part to our having attended high school during Congress\’s pettiness in the late 90\’s and college during Mr. Bush\’s consolidation of executive power at the onset of this millennium. Combined with Central Louisiana\’s track record on the free expression of adolescent thought, Columbine, the Lewinsky affair, the inconceivable tragedy in Manhattan (which went down about three weeks after I began my freshman year of college), and last year\’s hurricane, it\’s little wonder that many in our age group consider this week\’s elections to be one of the most affective events of our short lives.
Lamar is registered as an independent, but it\’s clear he has a set of ideals and opinions upon which he bases is analysis. It\’s unfair to accuse him of being biased in one breath, and an independent \”fence-straddler\” in the next. As a netroots activist on the one hand, and an underground journalist on the other, it is difficult to please everyone all of the time. I\’m stricken with the same dilemma when it comes to Mary Landrieu: I respect her commitment to moderation to represent the entire state of Louisiana with fidelity, but I\’m disheartened by her approval of certain non-progressive legislation in order to curry favor with conservatives.
That being said, I think that we need to distinguish between negative campaigning and slander. In psychological research on persuasion, persuasive techniques are distinguished as appeals to reason or appeals to emotion. The first employs rational argument to convince someone of their position. The latter relies heavily on stereotypes, propaganda, and the style of delivery to be persuasive. It has been established that persuasion that relies on appeals to emotion are more effective, and provides a short-cut the lengthier, reasoned approach. I think we can all agree that Americans, with our attention spans, generally do not like to sit around and think.
I feel that \”negative campaigning\” based on reasoned argumentation should be permissible in the field of politics. When Mr. Roy suggested that certain person had used the system of the City of Alexandria to their benefit, he was indeed saying bad things about his opponents and/or the status quo. On the other hand, because he was not being deliberately deceptive (though there\’s over 2,000 Alexandrians that would disagree) or outright slanderous, I feel that that because he presented his arguments with reasoned rhetoric he did not cross any lines. On the other hand, if he had inserted demonstratively fallacious statements or subtle stereotypical symbols, his campaign strategy would have fallen into a less ethically-defensible category.
When it comes to comparing Karl Rove to Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, I feel that we need to be somewhat careful. Perhaps Jackson and Sharpton cannot be as subtle with their appeal to stereotypes as Mr. Rove, but a great deal of that lies in their leadership positions. They are trying to defend and further the position of the people they represent, a group that has and currently faces significant obstacles in our nation. On the other hand, Mr. Rove uses similar techniques to further the agenda of those in power, for the sake of remaining in power. I don\’t believe that one side is completely right and the other is completely evil, but I do feel that using race as a reason to disparage the work of civil rights leaders is irresponsible. It\’s also irresponsible to suggest that Jesse Jackson was the Democratic nominee to the presidency, because Mondale won the nomination in 1984. I know that, and I was only one year old at the time. Dukakis beat him again in 1988. Anyone can run for a nomination; remember, Al Sharpton did it the last time around.
When it comes to Harold Ford, Jr., in Tennessee, it\’s underreported that a large reason he was not successful was due to a general repudiation of the allegedly corrupt Memphis political machine fonded by Harold Ford, Sr. The advertisement against him in which a scantily clad white woman is beckoning him (and later media references to the fact that he has dated white women in the past) does use race as an issue. The effectiveness of it\’s use is its subtlety. If it was overtly offensive, all but the most unabashedly racist among us would be repulsed. But because it relies on an emotional appeal, we are persuaded without having to do the work of deducing the source of its effectiveness. Think about it.
I apologize for the diatribe, but it\’s clear that emotions are running high and many people are using these forums to reflexively regurgitate things they have heard on the radio or seen on TV. For the most part that\’s what these blogs are for. That\’s why I\’ve used this one to present my arguments, and to present an example of a responsible method of using them.
I suppose you’ve all slept through the part where so many democratic leaders have called our president a liar, compared him to Hitler and other friendly epitets. They’ve accused him of manufacturing the war when he used the same intel he was given by Clinton appointee George Tenet and intel that was used by all the European nations. No matter that Saddam used gas on his own people and his WMD wasn’t totally accounted for by anyone.
But of course they’re not divisive…right…
I have never seen a single ad- print, internet, television, or radio- sponsored by the DNC or any related PAC that compares Bush to Hitler.
Again, you’re missing the point. I do not argue that Democrats haven’t used attack ads as a campaign tactic, only that the Rove model for victory– slash, burn, and defame– is no longer effective. This is to the benefit of both parties, and it should signal to the Republicans that they should work on broadening their base and redefining their message.
I wasn’t referring to ads or print, I was referring to quotes from their appearances in front of tv cameras for the world to hear, to include America’s enemies. This honestly falls under the category of giving aid and comfort to our enemy, i.e. treason. The same scenario happened causing our defeat in Vietnam, a war we could have won had it not been for the protests and the cutting off of funding by democrat controlled congress. Mark my words, the same thing is going to happen. Our task has been made all the more difficult having to fight the enemy AND the part of congress and the media which have hampered us at every turn.
Dismiss this if you will but our enemy is very media savvy and they watched and learned in Vietnam and they have been watching ever since.
Thank you, Lamar and Daniel, for your thoughtful treatises analyzing the political reality we have been living through. Rattlersix, I think you get most of your talking points from Rush and Sean. You don’t name the Dem “leaders” you accuse of denegrating the President, but I do agree that such behavior is counter-productive. You did hear Nancy Pelosi promise there would be no call for impeachment, didn’t you? She is reigning in those most left leaning Democrats craving payback for the reckless decisions the Great Decider and Co. have made during the past 6 years. Even Bush is looking for fresh perspectives… could it be he is finally seeing that there are shades of grey, that the world is not just black and white?
We should all watch and see if the conciliatory words spoken by both the President and the new majority leaders hold up in actions. Perhaps the back-biting will end and the executive and legislative brances in Washington will actually start brainstorming to develop valid strategies for the myriad problems we face. There must be an end game in Iraq, we must restore relations within the international community, decrease the disatrous defecit, deal with spiraling health care costs and our growing uninsured population, fund social security, etc, etc…
\”our enemy is very media savvy and they watched and learned in Vietnam and they have been watching ever since\”
rattlersix, I thought I had finished commenting on this thread but this statement is so far off the mark I couldn\’t help myself. What monolithic enemy are you referring to? Are we still fighting the VietCong (a misnomer meaning Vietnamese Communists) in Iraq?
While we were licking our wounds from Vietnam, Osama bin Ladin was being recruited by the CIA to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. bin Ladin\’s foreign \”Afghan Arabs\” (Afghans are not ethnic Arabs), or muhajedeen, received a lot of initial training and support from our government. The CIA, Arab leaders from Saudi Arabia (bin Ladin, etc), and thousands of young jihadists from across the Middle East flooded to counter the Soviet Red Threat. The Communists lost again and the muhajedeen were considered heroes (though their influence to the victory is debatable), and years later when the Taliban rose to power bin Ladin considered Afghanistan to be a dandy place to continue to train his jihadists.
As Iraq began jockeying for power before the First Gulf War, the Saudi royals grew concerned that Saddam\’s goal was to grab territory from Saudi Arabia. Osama bin Ladin was enjoying his victories in his native Saudi Arabia, and offered to use his fighters to defend the Saudi throne. The Saudi\’s declined, instead enlisting the support of Uncle Sam. Osama considered the invitation of a non-Muslim army into the land of Mecca and Medina to be an insult to him and all of Islam. He began to speak against the Saudis and his former US pals, and he was exiled to Sudan.
In the mid-90\’s when Sudan was receiving pressure from the US, bin Ladin was again forced to find a home for himself and his most loyal fighters. Some of the muhajedeen were even fighting in Bosnia against the Serbs. With the Taliban\’s growing power in Afghanistan, it was a natural choice. By 1996 the Taliban had captured Kabul and Osama bin Ladin was entrenched in the Islamic state. He had completed his transition from CIA pet project to US Enemy No. 1.
It has been well documented that the current administration cherry-picked intelligence to sell its case for war against Iraq. Don\’t take my word for it though; there\’s a good chance that over the next two years the new Congress will be investigating our decision to fight. But please try and understand that questioning the president\’s motives on a war like Iraq does not do damage to our boys fighting overseas or our intelligence community combating international terrorism. It\’s a necessary part of repairing the damage done in Iraq, a war that has invited even more ire against the USA and gotten at least one of my childhood buddies killed. These issues are complex but not impossible to understand. The real problem is that at this point, they may be impossible to resolve.
Well, I just assumed you had heard of the terrorists who killed so many Americans on 9/11. They are the enemy and they’re real and they do watch the news and they’ve studied the history of American withdrawals before the job was done. Ignoring them is not going to make them go away. If we leave Iraq before the job is done they will follow. What are you doing for your country, I mean besides enjoying the freedoms bestowed upon you by soldiers who fought for them?
“he measure of a country is the number of people who want in and how many want out. Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you: 1. Jesus Christ and 2. The American G.I. One died for your soul, the other died for your freedom.” Tony Blair in a recent interview.
M? The only reason you’ve not heard major democratic leaders denegrating the president is because you’ve only watched the mainstream liberal media who edit out the comments they don’t want you to see while the alternative media shows it all, good and bad.
10:16 AM-
I’m still awaiting your specifics…and, unfortunately, the FM tuner went out in my car a couple of months ago so I have been educated by the moderate commentators you love on KSYL talk radio during this last election cycle.
Actually, I get my news from numerous and varied sources. I try to be objective and hear even the points of view I diagree with at heart. I want to understand people who differ from myself or there can be no communication across party lines. My relationships with right wing co-workers have improved over the past couple of years through respectful dialogue, whereas when we began expressing our opposite points of view the tension in the air was palpable. Karl Rove’s style of politics may well be the source of the tension created during George W’s administration. (When else might someone have labelled themselves “liberalsarescum”?) I have been much more at ease during other Republican administrations, and in fact voted for one or two. Yet, over the past six years I’ve felt as though the Republican leadership didn’t give a damn about those of us who have differing views. The Bush/Cheney brand of neo-con ideology has been so inflexible that finally even some of the Republican base saw the inherent problems with the administration’s myopia.
As for our enemy responsible for 9/11: Al Qaeda was not in Iraq until we invaded on false pretense. The war in Afghanistan was the proper response, as there was no fuzzy intelligence about who the Taliban were and where Osama bin Laden had made his cave. He’s still there somewhere because we lost focus and went after Saddam. That’s when Al Qaeda went to Iraq and crafted this insurgency. War in Iraq was a stretch from the get-go. At the time, few in Congress had the backbone to stand up to the hawks and object to the invasion. There are few who could call for impeachment of Bush without some shame in their own heart for handing him what he took to be carte blanche. We can only hope that there are some great minds in Washington going to work as we speak to figure out a way to arrest the horrible loss of American soldiers and Iraqi people. The proposed talks the recent commission on Iraq recommends may be a way forward. We must work regionally in a diplomatic way in order to begin an exit.
Good God there are so many, I don’t know where to start, but here are a few to keep you busy for a while.
“I would like to apologize for referring to George W. Bush as a ‘deserter.’ What I meant to say is that George W. Bush is a deserter, an election thief, a drunk driver, a WMD liar, and a functional illiterate. And he poops his pants” –Michael Moore
“The majority of Americans — the ones who never elected you — are not fooled by your weapons of mass distraction.” –Michael Moore
“If someone did this [9/11] to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, D.C., and the planes’ destination of California — these were places that voted AGAINST Bush!” –Michael Moore
“You know he’s [George W. Bush] there illegally. You know he was not elected either by the popular vote or by the vote in Florida.” –Michael Moore
“Librarians see themselves as the guardians of the First Amendment. You got a thousand Mother Joneses at the barricades! I love the librarians, and I am grateful for them!” –Michael Moore, after outraged librarians saved his book “Stupid White Men,” when publisher HarperCollins insisted he rewrite it to be less critical of President Bush
“White people scare the crap out of me. … I have never been attacked by a black person, never been evicted by a black person, never had my security deposit ripped off by a black landlord, never had a black landlord … never been pulled over by a black cop, never been sold a lemon by a black car salesman, never seen a black car salesman, never had a black person deny me a bank loan, never had a black person bury my movie, and I’ve never heard a black person say, ‘We’re going to eliminate ten thousand jobs here – have a nice day!'” –Michael Moore, writing in “Stupid White Men”
“These bastards who run our country are a bunch of conniving, thieving, smug pricks who need to be brought down and removed and replaced with a whole new system that we control.” –Michael Moore, writing in “Dude, Where’s My Country?”
Here’s another article for you to consider.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29414
And this is probably one of the most vile articles containing the comparing of President Bush to Hitler.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/12/30/more_liberal_hate_speech/
I too, could do without all the name-calling and hatred on both sides. I also fervently disagree with much of the democratic platform, that of raising taxes, legalizing partial birth abortions, giving a free ride to slackers and people who are have made poor choices in life.
There must be confusion as to who Democrats think of as leaders. Michael Moore is an outspoken critic of the President, but that doesn’t make him a democratic leader. Don’t pay so much attention to criticism of President Bush and it may help you take in the entire picture. There are some compelling thoughts being shared by up and coming true leaders of the Democrats. There are, likewise, productive ideas coming from Republicans. Don’t relive the past; watch the present. Our country has the opportunity to make some real progress if we don’t respond to new ideas with distrust and knee-jerk polar responses.
You can’t bring emotions into politics. All of you you need to remember that is ok to think diffently. Compromise and open mindedness are traits of a good politician.
Everyone blames President Bush for our situation in Iraq but they forget so easily what got us to this point. I will remind you once again of some pertinent quotes from the previous administration and let you judge for yourself why we’re in this together but the left wing has selective amnesia.
“One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity
to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver
them. That is our bottom line.” – President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998
“If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is
clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s
weapons of mass destruction program.” -President Clinton, Feb. 17,
1998
“Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a
great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state
will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our
allies is the greatest security threat we face.” – Madeline
Albright, Feb 18, 1998
“He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten
times since 1983.” – Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security
Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998
“[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with
the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions
(including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi
sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq’s refusal
to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.”
– Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom
Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998
“Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of
mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the
region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection
process.” – Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), DEC. 16, 1998
“Hussein has … chosen to spend his money on building weapons of
mass destruction and palaces for his cronies.” – Madeline Albright,
Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999